Ala. Youth Pastor Accused of Forcing Teen into Prostitution in Multiple States

A longtime volunteer youth pastor has admitted to working with seven females – including a teenager – to engage in commercial sex acts, according to arrest paperwork obtained by PEOPLE.

Police arrested Stephen Dewayne Johnson on one count of third-degree felony living off the earnings of prostitution, per his booking report. The 40-year-old Birmingham, Ala. man was booked into Paul Rein Detention Facility in Pompano Beach, Fla.

On Oct. 24, Broward County Committing Magistrate Judge Michele McCaul Ricca ordered him held on a $500,000 bond. If released, Johnson would be tracked with an electronic monitoring device.

One day earlier, an undercover detective knocked at a 2-bedroom apartment in Plantation, Fla, where he said in a six-page complaint affidavit that he came face-to-face with a teenager he recognized from online escort postings.

Inside, the detective located Johnson “lying on the floor mattress in the master bedroom.”

Johnson – who as of his arrest was unemployed – later told police that for the past 12 years he had served as a volunteer youth pastor at Macedonia 17th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where he was still working with kids ages five to 18. He also called himself a children’s “counselor,” per the affidavit.

The teen – whose name was redacted from the affidavit – told the detective that she had been selling “nude content” of herself on Snapchat since she was a 12-year-old in Maryland and that she later met a woman online named Antania, who offered to help her with sales. She said they worked together for a handful of years without meeting.

Then, according to the teen’s account, in September 2023 – when she was 17 and struggling with homelessness after fleeing an abusive caretaker – Antania purchased her a plane ticket to Birmingham.

There, the teen discovered that Johnson was posing as Antania and began directing her to engage in commercial sex acts, per the affidavit. In the ensuing months, she said Johnson drove her between Maryland and Alabama “to engage in commercial sex acts.”

Johnson later followed her to Florida – after she was accepted to Nova Southeastern University – to continue profiting from her sex acts, per the affidavit, which alleges that he created her ads, texted with prospective clients and took 40 percent of her proceeds.

Investigators uncovered her ads in multiple states, per the affidavit, which notes the teen said Johnson directed her to have paid sex in Alabama, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C. 

In a recorded statement made without his lawyer and described in the affidavit, Johnson told investigators he started handling her nude content when she was 14. He claimed she had been working with a 27-year-old woman he called Antania Hodges.

He claimed that after she moved to Birmingham, the then 17-year-old made $105,000 from commercial sex acts in a several-month timeframe, per the affidavit, and that he had twice had sex with her as a minor.

The judge barred Johnson from having contact with the teen or other minors and prohibited him from using or possessing devices with internet access. 

As of Tuesday, Oct. 29, the online court docket did not include information pertaining to any plea in the case, the date of the next scheduled hearing or the name of Johnson’s lawyer.